Post-Capitalism

The rise of Podemos has provoked no shortage of stern omens in the international press, warning of hellish scenarios and dark times ahead were the breakout party to rise to office. One Spanish journalist has summarized those fears in four tidy paragraphs listing the legacy of the present establishment, reframed and handed back in cool satire.

“What does it mean to have €10K in fines? It’s money that never existed, so it can’t be claimed as missing from somewhere. If I pay, would it create wealth? Increase GDP? Socialize wealth, perhaps? Or only change hands? Whose hands are better?”

The hacker culture is capable of reversing the relationships at play in the contribution economy. Hacking means appropriating tools and networks to put them to other uses. We’re amateurs, yes, but rebel amateurs…

My dear friend, I know what you’re going through. Neoliberalism has you possessed and you don’t know how to get rid of it. If it’s any consolation, let me tell you that you are not alone. Neoliberalism, more than an ideology or a policy, is a demon that has possessed everything. It has possessed the State and all its institutions, the hospitals, the schools, and the workplaces. It has also possessed us. It has taken our bodies, our desires and yearnings, our ideas and dreams. And once possessed, the demon of neoliberalism governs us under its one law: the law of competition.

“We met with John Holloway in the city of Puebla, Mexico, to ask him if, after everything that has happened in the past decade, from the progressive governments of Latin America to Podemos and Syriza in Europe, along with the problems for self-organised practices to exist and multiply, he still thinks that it is possible to “change the world without taking power”.

An interview with Enric Duran, who’s currently busy organizing the FairCoop Open Cooperative, a community-built effort to alleviate global economic inequalities through the use of mutual credit, reputation systems and cryptocurrencies.

“But it has to be noted that the world of the existing collaborative economy has a divided soul: one side has much to do with P2P, the communal and the free software community that are by no means in the majority.”

“One of the most important evolutions of 15-M is undoubtedly the “Movimiento por la Democracia” (Movement for Democracy). It clearly targets the political arena without desiring to become a political party itself”

“This is how the whole “new communalism,” from P2P talks to debates about the FLOK Society, including the new North American cooperativism, mutualism, or the movement of the ecological economy, represent the attempt to contribute non-universalist global solutions that are not based on imagined and abstract identities, but rather on real communities, through the development of community economies capable of sustaining well-being in a network.”

Neal Gorenflo (founder, Shareable), Michel Bauwens (founder, P2P Foundation), and John Restakis (author, “Humanizing the Economy”) speak with Enric Duran about the creation and development of the Catalan Integral Cooperative, Enric’s path and current situation, and much more.

“Resilience is at the same time the golden rule and the consequence of building community on a shared economy under a P2P architecture. It is our main virtue and the only thing that can guarantee survival even under increasing global decomposition.” Cyberpunk, P2P, and the Future Now: Michel Bauwens, Neal Gorenflo and John Robb interview David de Ugarte from las Indias.”